Articles

Driving data centre efficiency needs wide range of metrics

IT leaders should use a diverse range of metrics to attain the level of detailed measurement and analysis required to ensure long term sustainability, and to drive data centre efficiency.

This is according to Roel Castelein, EMEA marketing chair for The Green Grid, who says it is important to adopt a three-dimensional approach in order to gain a complete view of a data centre and to improve the effectiveness of their operations. The latest annual
Data Centre Industry Survey from Uptime Institute has revealed that IT Infrastructure teams are still relying on the least meaningful metrics to drive efficiency. The majority of IT departments are positioning total data centre power consumption and total data centre power usage as primary indications of efficient stewardship of environmental and corporate resources.

Also, research from The Green Grid, which surveyed 150 IT decision makers, showed that while most recognise that a broad range of KPIs are useful in monitoring and improving their data centre efficiency, many are yet to implement them.

“Our research,” said Castelein, “clearly shows that there is an understanding of how useful each KPI can be. However, the reason for limited adoption may come down to the perception that implementation will have a negative impact on CAPEX and also OPEX. This doesn’t have to be the case. With enough resourcefulness and data centre know-how, you don’t necessarily have to be a big-spender to increase your data centre efficiency and therefore save money and do less harm to the environment. Oversimplifying or even focusing on a single metric can create wider business issues as key factors are ignored – the impact is however very real.”

The binary findings are quite staggering. The report found that 88% view water usage effectiveness (WUE) as a useful metric, but only 27% use it. At the same time, 82% view power usage effectiveness (PUE) as a beneficial metric but only 29% implement it.

A great deal of heat is generated in a data centre. This heat must be removed as efficiently as possible. A number of options are available to achieve this goal, depending on the structural conditions, the technology used and the climate conditions. For example, options include cooling an entire area using precision air-conditioning units, direct server rack cooling or cooling of the entire data centre using a central fan unit. For all these methods, ebm-papst provides innovative fans that ensure the highest level of efficiency and maximum reliability.